Road accidents leave 13 dead across China

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-10-30 20:22

BEIJING -- Thirteen people died and more than 30 were injured in three separate road accidents across China on Wednesday and Thursday.

Police in Shanghai said one tour bus with more than 30 passengers aboard ran into a BMW sedan on a freeway in Fengxian, an outer district of Shanghai, before veering off the road and overturning at around 10 a.m. Thursday.

Most of the casualties were on the tour bus, owned by Tiantai Highway Transport Corporation of Zhejiang Province. It was said to be heading for Shanghai from neighboring Zhejiang.

One Chinese man died in hospital. Also injured in the accident were an Indian mother and her daughter who were riding in the BMW car registered in Suzhou, a city in Jiangsu Province, said a source from Fengxian District Central Hospital.

The identities of the two Indians have yet to be made public.

In north China, a truck heading for Chifeng city, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and a Xiali sedan car collided head on at about 8:15 p.m.on Wednesday on National Highway 111.

Six people in the car, including the driver surnamed Zhu, died at the scene, said a spokesman with Aohan Banner Government in Chifeng.

The truck, registered in Haicheng, a city in Liaoning Province, was driven by a farmer surnamed Ding. Before the accident, car driver Zhu, a resident of Hongshan District of Chifeng, was heading for Aohan, said the spokesman.

A third accident at 5 a.m. on Wednesday involved a Xiali car carrying seven people from northwest China's Gansu Province, which crashed into the rear of a parked dump truck shortly after entering Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region on National Highway 312.

Five of the seven people in the car died at the scene, while one of the two injured died six hours later, according to the control center 110 operated by Ningxia Hui Autonomous Regional Bureau of Security.

Police are still investigating the causes of the three accidents.